1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Internet traffic monitoring, and more particularly, to a method for using monitoring implements to encompass a wide range of internet traffic.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Related Information
Many Web sites are financially supported by online advertising. Some Web sites sell their own advertisements (ads) and many use, for at least a portion of their advertising inventory, third party ad sales companies known commonly as Advertising Networks (AN). For ease of reference, both types (those who sell their own ads and those who use third party ad sales companies) will be referred herein as ANs. The profitability of many Web sites is chiefly driven by the success, or failure, of the AN at selling the Web sites' ad inventory at the highest possible rate.
Run of Network (RON) advertisements are served indiscriminately to all Internet users who visit Web sites. These RON advertisements tend to earn much lower revenues per ad shown than their more targeted counterparts. This targeting can include location, user interests and other profile data.
To increase the value of the ad inventory, ANs generally use Web bugs and Cookies to track individual users and make it possible to target individual ads. A Web bug may be a small (typically 1×1 pixel) transparent GIF image (or other image of the same color as the background) that is embedded in an HTML page, such as a Web page. When a Web page is opened, the Web bug image is downloaded from the server storing it, allowing for monitoring of the Web page's viewing or usage. A Web bug may also use HTML, iframe, style, script, input link, embed, object or other tags to track usage.
When an Internet user navigates to a Web page that has advertisement inventory under AN management, the AN serves a Web bug. While a Web bug on an individual page has limited utility, ANs that have relationships with large numbers of Web sites can serve their Web bugs on many Web sites. By cross-referencing the traffic from multiple Web sites, the AN can begin profiling the Internet user and provide higher value advertising that is more highly targeted to the individual Internet user's interest. Therefore, a primary concern or goal for many AN is to increase the distribution of their Web bug to as many sites as possible.
Further investigation showed that ANs have largely been left out of the value cycle created by search engines. Search engines are able to derive important profile information from their users' Internet searches. They then monetize this profile information by showing ads that match this profile. For example, someone searching for a hybrid automobile on a search engine could see ads for Toyota Prius® vehicles instead of a relatively low-value RON advertisement. Without the ability to place their Web bug on major search engine sites, AN are unable to tap this valuable profile information.
Finally, the Network Service Providers (NSP), such as ISPs, corporations, educational institutions, municipal wireless networks, etc., are not able to monetize their users' valuable profile information. While they may know the location of their users, they are unable to easily provide this information to ANs. Moreover, many NSPs do not profile their users' traffic and thus are not able to provide this information to ANs.
Attempts to bridge the gap between ANs and NSPs have typically fallen into two categories: 1) Swapping out RON ads with more targeted ads, or 2) modifying Web requests made to ANs to include additional profile information that will enable the AN to serve more targeted advertisements. Both approaches require the use of a device, such as a proxy server, or its equivalent, to modify the HTTP request to enable the switching of the original Web requests to ANs. Moreover, both approaches require some sort of monitoring of the NSP's user traffic. Two major problems of these approaches are that they require extensive NSP monitoring and, perhaps even more difficult, require detailed technical interaction between NSPs and ANs.
Internet Traffic Measurement (ITM) companies face a different challenge. Companies such as Nielsen Net Ratings have client-side monitoring software installed on thousands of computers so that they can derive statistics that can be applied to the Internet populace in general in order to understand global trends. Other ITM companies have devices installed at central points on the Internet in order to gather data for the development of trend information. Such solutions use the data to find broad trends rather than individual behavioral data about Internet users and thus are unable to provide specific criteria for the placement of targeted content and advertising. Other ITM companies have other approaches, but use relatively small samples to represent the much larger Internet population.
Transmission of the monitoring implements requires a flexible format that does not obstruct the user's access to the Internet content requested. Methods that include modification of cookies to include new criteria or modification of the original web page may have undesirable consequences. Additionally, modification of an HTML-based web page can result in unintended consequences such as failure of the page to load correctly or excessive delay in loading the page. It is desirable that services which insert AN and ITM web bugs also provide transparency to the end user.
There is, therefore, a need for a method and apparatus which enables ANs or ITM companies to more easily monitor Web traffic generated by users surfing on the Internet via NSPs and to effectively communicate this data to the ANs. The present invention provides the methods and apparatuses to meet these needs.